Book Image

Learn ARCore - Fundamentals of Google ARCore

Book Image

Learn ARCore - Fundamentals of Google ARCore

Overview of this book

Are you a mobile developer or web developer who wants to create immersive and cool Augmented Reality apps with the latest Google ARCore platform? If so, this book will help you jump right into developing with ARCore and will help you create a step by step AR app easily. This book will teach you how to implement the core features of ARCore starting from the fundamentals of 3D rendering to more advanced concepts such as lighting, shaders, Machine Learning, and others. We’ll begin with the basics of building a project on three platforms: web, Android, and Unity. Next, we’ll go through the ARCore concepts of motion tracking, environmental understanding, and light estimation. For each core concept, you’ll work on a practical project to use and extend the ARCore feature, from learning the basics of 3D rendering and lighting to exploring more advanced concepts. You’ll write custom shaders to light virtual objects in AR, then build a neural network to recognize the environment and explore even grander applications by using ARCore in mixed reality. At the end of the book, you’ll see how to implement motion tracking and environment learning, create animations and sounds, generate virtual characters, and simulate them on your screen.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Shader programming


Shader programming is probably one of the most difficult and low-level development tasks you can do as a graphics programmer. It requires an excellent knowledge of 3D math and the graphics rendering process. Also, writing good shaders is a skill that can take years to master. So why are we covering this in a book that covers fundamentals? Simply put, coding a good shader may be difficult, but it is also extremely rewarding, and it's a skillset that is essential to any serious 3D programmer.

Note

We will be using shaders throughout the rest of this book for many things. If, at this point, you are starting to feel overwhelmed, then take a break and study some 3D math or jump ahead a chapter. Sometimes, you just need time for things to sink in before you get that eureka moment.

A shader program runs directly on the graphic processing unit (GPU) of the device or computer. If the device doesn't have a GPU, then the program is executed on the CPU, which is a much slower process...